Writers in the Sky offers three different levels of editing--developmental, copy editing, and proofreading for books, articles, and other documents. WITS has edited many books for publishers, several of which became bestsellers in their category. We offer full or partial edits, as well as the opportunity to work with an editor as much or as little as you like.
Typos, grammatical errors, confusing sentence structure and inconsistent writing can prevent your work from being published. As writers and editors, we will work with you to ensure that your writing is ready to present to the world and make a great impression. We will assess your manuscript's market readiness, without charge, to give you an editing estimate. We can also do a full evaluation of your book, assist you with book formatting, and write your query letter and/or book proposal to submit to agents and publishers.
Our editors are able to analyze a book manuscript and mark all technical errors, then return two electronic copies to the client. One will be a redline copy tracking the changes we made. This allows you to accept or reject each change individually. The other will be a clean copy to show how the text will look with all of our suggestions accepted. The editor you work with depends upon the topic of your book (each editor has a preference for and experience with particular genres), as well as who is available to take the project. WITS owner Dana Micheli is available to work with authors of spiritual, metaphysical, New Age or paranormal genres.
Developmental Editing
Also known as "book doctoring", this editing service is used to coach or guide an author's manuscript to the next level by offering suggestions for improvement. We not only mark errors in the text, we assist you with making changes to strengthen your writing and develop your story or manuscript to its best potential. A developmental editor may rewrite some sections for you. We work with you on all elements of book development, including front matter and back matter.
This service is similar to ghostwriting, but when you hire us to assist you with developmental editing you must provide a rough draft of your manuscript for us to work with. We then serve as a mentor of sorts, helping aspiring authors improve their overall writing skills. The end result is the transformation of your rough draft, which will be a quality manuscript ready for publication.
Developmental editing projects may be billed on an hourly or per-page basis, depending on the scope of the work involved. Please contact us for a quote.
Copy editing
Our copy editors will go through your manuscript and complete the needed changes, including:
- Correcting mechanical, spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage errors.
- Checking for proper alignment and spacing of text.
- Marking inconsistencies and asking the author to consistently format dates, headlines, and numbers, as well as any alphabetized, bulleted and numbered lists. (We also offer book formatting as a separate service).
- Noting awkward transitions, redundancies, and hyperbole.
- Noting any biased language or stereotyping.
- Noting any place where the point of view shifts without a clear sense of who is telling the story.
- Marking improper formatting of dialogue and checking the balance of dialogue vs. action/exposition/internal thought.
- Making the author aware of places where he/she is "telling" rather than showing what the characters are doing and thinking.
The copy editor may contact the author for clarification, ask him/her to rewrite some sections, or get permission to make other improvements (such as moving a chapter or segment to a better location in the manuscript). We do not rewrite for you at this level of editing; however, we will proofread the entire document one time once the author has accepted or rejected all changes and sent us a near-perfect document.
Copy editing starts at $7 per 250-word page.
Proofreading
Once your book has been written and edited, it will need a thorough proofread. Our proofreaders will mark all technical errors and return the manuscript to the author as a Word document. The author is responsible for completing the suggested changes.
Proofreading is priced at a rate of $2.50 per 250-word page.
Book Evaluation
One of our editors will read your book or manuscript and give a written assessment of its commercial potential. A kind but honest opinion of the author's strengths and weaknesses will be given, along with tips for improving the overall quality of the manuscript. The evaluation includes an assessment of the manuscript's publishing condition and what it would take to get it ready to submit to an agent or publisher.
Formatting
Self-publishing and print-on-demand companies often require an author to format a book per their specifications. Most authors do not have the technical skill to utilize the advanced features of Microsoft Word.
We will create proper margins for your printer's specifications, check alignment and spacing of text, set section breaks, and add headers, footers, and page numbers in your Word document. Using styles, we will set your fonts for body text, headings, and numbers to ensure that alphabetized, bulleted, and numbered lists are formatted consistently throughout your book. You will have a Word version that you can amend and a PDF that can be used as an e-book.
If your printer requires your book to be uploaded using InDesign or another book layout program, we will refer you to a graphic designer or our book production specialist.
Book formatting is priced at a rate of $5 per 250-word page.
Academic Editing
Do you want a professional eye to review your term paper, Masters thesis or PhD dissertation before you submit it? Do you need help to make your college or graduate school application essay as strong as possible? Does that English essay not seem as dynamic as it could be?
Dana Micheli provides academic editing for students at the college and graduate school levels. She checks the document against the assignment's substantive and formatting (APA, Chicago style) requirements to make sure that all are being met; she also points out any issues with grammar and punctuation. Deborah Wilbrink offers private or group lessons in creative and academic writing, with emphasis on originality. While Dana and Deborah will not write your papers for you, they can assist you in making your points clearly and concisely and will point out any technical errors.
Academic editing may be priced as a copy editing or developmental editing project, depending upon the length of the paper and the amount of assistance required. Contact us for a quote.